


you gotta put me in the spotlight

by softcoregore



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: AU, Anxiety, College AU, Fluff, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers, Youtuber AU, inspired by this one bmc fic, mentions of mental illnesses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-04-29 15:10:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14475366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softcoregore/pseuds/softcoregore
Summary: Evan’s life is pretty simple. He makes youtube videos about trees, he struggles through college and tries to keep his scholarship, he shares a flat with his bestfriend.Oh, he also has a crush.





	1. read my mind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey hi! instead of updating my other fics, i decided to write one for a whole different fandom!
> 
> this is partly inspired by a bmc youtube fic (ill try and find the name!) 
> 
> oh and also: im trying to be careful with the characterisations of these characters. if anyone has any tips etc . feel free to comment!

“So, as promised from last week, here’s a cover of Vampires Will Never Hurt You by My Chemical Romance.” 

Long, slender, pixellated fingers fly over a fretboard on Evan’s computer screen, the notes slightly dimmed by the small speakers the sound is playing out of. On the screen was its_connor, or Connor Murphy, a 20 year old music youtuber of whom Evan had been online stalking for weeks now.

It had started with a video of his (“Sketchbook Tour 2016-17”) that had popped up on his recommended, a thumbnail full of intricate sketches that Evan couldn’t help but click on, despite his lack of artistic knowledge. Then that led to him falling down the rabbit hole that was Connor’s videos, first watching all the sketching and art related videos on his channel, consuming speedpaint after speedpaint and two colour challenges. Then he started watching his guitar covers, all done on a solid-looking glossy black stratocaster covered in stickers and scratches. And two weeks later, he had even seen every video on his second channel (‘Connor Gets Pissed’), feeling impassioned and angry by his detailed rants on all things from mental health and recovery to the subway system in New York.

And now here he was, eagerly watching Connor’s new upload, despite Evan’s own dislike of heavy rock music, much preferring calming alternative indie music and musicals. Evan was somewhat captivated by the tall, skinny (verging on lanky) twenty year old man with trailing, waved hair and mesmerisingly mixed eyes. All in all he had a massive crush on the guy.

Which was all well and good, except Evan was nothing to him. The guy had 200,000 subscribers and went to PARSONS, probably had a ton of cool arty friends and a billion cute men and women who wanted to date him who he actually *knew*. Meanwhile Evan was a tiny content creator with at best 30,000 subscribers all watching his ecology and tree videos. The only videos of his that ever gained traction were his “unsolved” crime videos he occasionally posted, more often than not to do with white collar crimes. Not exactly in his usual vein, and hardly attracting the attention of Connor. 

At least he lived in the same city as him. Although he shared that trait with probably 10 million other people so it was hardly a key factor. He also went to Columbia and majored in biological and plant sciences, not a cool major like illustrations. Lamely, he had at a push two friends (of whomst he still didn’t fully believe wanted to be his friends) and no one, not even the kids at university who wanted to sleep with as many people as possible irregardless of aesthetics, were interested in him.

Ergo, he had no shot with him.

As he began to type a comment, something similar to “this cover is so good!! it sounds beautiful :-)”, the lucifer of playful bullying appeared. Or Jared.

“What’s up loser? Still crushing on tall, dark and emo?” Jared popped his head over the laptop screen perched precariously on Evan’s knees, peering down at the screen to read his typed comment upside down.

“I-i... It’s not a crush! And even if it was a crush it wouldn’t matter cause he doesn’t know me and it’s not like he will ever know me therefore the fact that I have a crush is irrelevant as it isn’t even going anywhere and I don’t have a crush anyway so- so-“ He garbled, words flying out of his mouth before the rationalised part of his mind could tame the thoughts flying off of his tongue in a mess of puzzled together half-sentences.

“Jesus, Hansen, I get it. I was just joking.” Jared sighed, laying a hand on Evan’s foot as he sat down next to him, in an attempt to calm the flushed and slightly panicked other man. “It’s okay to have an internet crush you know?”

Shrugging awkwardly and pressing send on the comment, Evan nodded, closing the laptop screen after and placing it down under the shared sofa. 

“No I get that... You just startled me. You know what it’s... what I’m like w-when that happens.” He stuttered slightly, nodding with an affirmation of what he said and shifting to be slightly closer and more comfortable next to Jared.

“Dude it’s fine, you acorn. Just next time, try not to make your immediate reaction lying. It’s not a good habit, even if it averts anxiety,” Jared smiled not unkindly, chubby cheeks pushing up his acrylic frames. His smile quickly turned to a smirk, “Anyway, what is it about Mr. Tortured Artist that attracts you so much?” 

Evan shook his head; Jared was still pushing for details. Then again...

“I mean, he just seems like a good person. He’s clearly not a perfect person, but he just feels so real. Something about him reminds me of me, and I’ve never seen that in anyone? Plus he’s not straight so... yeah.” Nods once and finishes, slightly avoiding Jared’s eyes as he focused on the fraying burgundy couch material.

“That’s cute, Ev. Liked the little drop in about sexuality, Mr Bi Bi Bi,” He sang in tune to the N-Sync song, eyes glimmering in kind mocking. “Anyway, do you want to see my video plan for Sunday? I’m gonna roast Lele Pons in all her glory.” Evan nodded keenly, he liked seeing Jared’s plans for his “decimating other youtuber’s content” videos. Even though he could never be that openly harsh or truthful on the internet, he enjoyed living vicariously through KleanKleinman’s videos, however funny (and ironically not CLEAN or brand friendly) they were.

That was part of how they managed to share a flat in New York, despite them both going to expensive universities (even with their full-ride scholarships). Jared had way more subs than Evan or Connor did, verging past a good 500k. It was mainly from his vine following who followed him after the “Tragic Passing of Vine”. He didn’t make the same meme-y content, but his video analysis fit perfectly into the niche market and he had managed to become a solid name, up there with Drew Gooden and Eddie Burbank. 

It probably helped that he had a minor in Film Studies and literally managed to work magic on computers.

A windfall of money followed after his substantial blowup on YouTube, and now with regular livestreams and sponsored videos he could afford to have an apartment for him and Evan, even if it was tiny.

Evan still contributed to the bills, paying for all the groceries (aka, unhealthy junk food) they accumulated. As teasing as Jared was, however, he did care for Evan a lot, especially since their dual move from Portland to New York for college. He didn’t mind paying for the both of them.

And that’s how Evan ended up for the first proper time in the background of one of Jared livestreams later that day, earphones in, typing rapidly to get his essay done for his Environmental Law elective. He had reached the point of his anxiety about the class and disappointing the professor, and then failing and having his mom hate him outweighing the anxiety of a couple of thousand viewers judging him from behind a computer screen.

“Then I said, ‘Waddup I’m Jared, I’m nineteen and I never fuckin’ learnt how to read’ and no one in the class laughed. In fact the professor gave me a funny look, but fuck him. Vine generation for LIFE!” Exclaimed Jared, the noise of him reliving his Intro to Poisson and Statistics class to his viewers filtered through his earbuds. 

Evan paused and looked up, looking up to see Jared’s pseudo-reflection on the computer screen as the other faced away from him.

“Who’s that in the background?” Reading one of the comments aloud, Jared spun around on his shitty desk chair, making eye contact with Evan has he winked and faced back to the webcam. “That’s Evan! I probably mentioned him like once but he’s my lifelong family friend who lives with me. I’m joking,” He chuckled. “Nah, he’s my best friend. Fun fact, he used to wear uggs to school in like, grade 12, cause his mom didn’t realise that uggs were technically for girls, and I stood up to some asshole who was bullying him (of which only I am allowed to do) and then I kept annoying him and we became proper friends.” He smiled back at Evan, who had since taken one of his earphones out and was blushing a fluorescent red. 

“Evan makes videos too, although I can already jedi-sense him wanting to throttle me mentioning this. They’re all tree and horticultural videos, if anyone’s interested. That’ll be one loser sat in their Mom’s basement. Really though, he makes some good crime videos as well!” Winking at the camera, Jared attached the link to Evan’s channel into the comment section and pinned it to the top of the discussion.

As he continued reading off random comments, Evan’s heartbeat settled from the initial terror of realising now he was going to have a windfall of sudden judgmental followers, and he started typing again, struggling to get back into the rhythm of talking about the fairness of pro-bono cases and solicitor bonuses in regards to Environmental cases. All he could think about was the new people viewing his videos. Would they judge him for his stance on selective logging versus clear cutting? And his thoughts on sustainable foresting? Would they think he was a freak for his crime videos?

Jared’s cackle ripped him out of his reverie, dragging his head up to glance at the glassed other. Who was currently laughing, if slightly nefariously.

“Does Evan have a crush on anyone? Well. There was this girl... but he decided to switch lanes and currently he’s crushing on this youtuber called Conn- oof- What the fuck?!” Whirling around, Jared looked to see Evan looking rather frantically, holding another cushion in his hand; a previous leaf green one had just made contact with Jared’s mousy brown hair.

Shaking his head more vigorously than anyone prior in all of time, Evan pleaded with Jared using just his eyes, baby blues pooling with faux-tears. 

“Apparently Evan’s decided that his CRUSH can’t be named. And dude, you can stop with the fake crying,” Sighing, he turned back to the webcam in question, looking rather resigned to the camera. “Well that’s all folks. Mr Pusillanimous over there has called for an ending to the meme meeting. Au reviour or whatever.”

Clicking off, Jared spun to face Evan, who could literally sense the slight annoyance in the other.

“C’mon man, what are they gonna do? It’s not like emo espresso or whoever the fuck even watches my livestreams. Just chill out.” Exasperatedly, he looked at Evan. Evan just stared back glumly. Even if Jared was telling the truth, the initial panic and urge to maim him won over any rational, non-anxious thoughts that assured him that Connor almost definitely wasn’t watching the livestream.

Unbeknownst to him, however, Connor was aware of him in a different way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos raise my math grade


	2. never knew somebody like you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor recognises that tree guy. He definitely remembers that tree guy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so uh, two updates in one day? schmad.
> 
> i just felt inspired ig. OH and the bmc that inspired a 'youtuber au' feeling in me was 'Gaymers' by haelpack! its insanely good so check it out.
> 
> um, the plot is kinda all over the place cause i'm making this up as i gooooOOOooo

**12 NEW COMMENTS!**

The notification email from YouTube buzzed through, a couple of hours after he had initially posted his latest cover. Usually the comments poured in for the first hour, and then it would slow to a few every 15 or so minutes as his residual subscribers and people recommended the video watched it. His eyes scanned over the comments; a bunch of 13 year olds posting vaguely weird and creepy things (“ugh daddy”), a middle aged man posting a garbled mess, someone calling him “borderline greasy future school shooter” (he could already feel his temper rising, the itchy urge to fire back an insult he was trying to quell) and- oh. Tree guy had posted a comment. “this cover is so good!! It sounds beautiful :-)”

 

Tree guy was Connor’s nickname for a viewer (and youtuber) of his. He had occasionally seen his videos on his recommended, popping up at random times, especially when Connor was on the weird side of youtube. Memorably, Evan's video on the ‘300 Million Yen Robbery’, which had been a video Connor had bothered to watch. Watching and listening to the sandy haired man fumbling over Japanese names and pronunciations had amused him greatly at the time, especially through the weed-induced haze he was in at 3am.

 

Imagine his surprise (however sarcastic seeming) when Evan (or TreEvan, his handle, the nerd) started commenting on his videos. Every. Single. One.

 

At first, it was all his art videos, even the crappy webcam ones he filmed back at home in his dimly lit room in which he attempted to rather angstily disassemble and analyse Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work instead of doing something else. Each comment had some nice, vaguely “mom” sounding comment about how good his work is or how interesting the topic was. Then the comments migrated onto some of his rant-y college related videos, the ones he posted on his channel before he decided to spawn a rant channel. And the comments continued onto his covers, even ones Connor was sure the other man would NOT vibe with.

The guy even watched every single one of his shitty rants and not a single video was left without a comment.

 

Normally Connor wouldn’t notice a frequent commenter, just purely due to the fact that they got buried in the other comments, tags and likes. But something about Evan, his phrasing, even his videos (of which Connor truthfully hadn’t watched a lot of, yet. It was midterm season, he had an excuse.) that captured Connor’s attention.

 

Instead of getting riled up, like he usually did when people commented slightly off-kilter things on his videos, Evan’s comments actually appeared real to him. Connor didn’t know why, but the unsureness of it did leave something at unrest in the back of his mind.

 

He was typing a response about, still slightly unsure as to what he was going to say (thanks? thanks dude? I’ve seen your vids?) when a banging on his single dorm room snapped him out of his trance and his idly tapping fingers.

 

“Connor if you are watching porn you better stop ‘cause I’m coming in.” The yell of his sister’s voice against the flaking white door made him shoot up and look with slightly sullen eyes towards the head popping past the edge, identical brown hair to his hanging down as hazel eyes stared back at him, nothing like his.

 

Raising her eyebrows, Zoe stepped farther into his room, stepping around the pile of shoes next to the door and perching on the ratty, creaking chair next to his desk, staring directly at him. “Well?”

 

“Well what?” He shot back. She hadn’t even asked him a question and she was already expecting a response? He could feel the annoyance he normally tried to control rise.

 

“Dude calm down. I thought we had moved past you being perpetually angry at me. And were you watching porn?” Her eyebrows rose in a suggestive question, eyes glimmering with a tease, nothing like the fear and resentment they once held (and that was enough of that train of thought).

 

“Oh. Um. No I wasn’t, I was just on youtube. Looking at y’know comments.” He chuckled awkwardly, still holding the open laptop that had been resting on his chest, showing the comment reply he didn’t want his sister to know about.

 

“Ooh, what is it? Let me see,” She rushed forward, the hurricane that was Zoe Murphy snatching up the computer before Connor could even half-heartedly protest. He had learnt in the recent years that the best way to get along with Zoe was to let her be full of energy, instead of trying to fight it. Or the possibility of his attempt at replying back to his comment ‘crush’.

 

“Evan huh? What’s so special about his generic comment? He sounds like he’s 35.” Huffing, she passed the computer back to her brother, who was now glowering back at her. “Unless you recognise him… and you do! Ha!”

 

Shoving her slightly off of the dark sheets she was now seated on, he pulled the computer even closer to himself, wanting to end this interaction as quickly as possible. Before he could even think about it, a quick responding “thx” had been typed away and sent back as he slammed down the laptop lid, perhaps a tad too vigorously than needed.

 

Zoe smiled back at him, one eyebrow raised once more as she took note of the situation.

 

“So there is something up with that guy. Huh. Well, I’m here to invite you to dinner with Alana and myself.” Finishing with a flourish, she looked expectantly at Connor, fingers catching his slender ones and twisting them as she played around with the digits.

 

“I don’t feel like third-wheeling, thanks.” Huffing, he pulled the duvet closer up his body, the fading cool light from outside clashing with the warm lamps illuminating the scene and the siblings sat on the dorm bed. He loved his sister, and he was glad to have a functional relationship with her once again, one that had just continued to strengthen since she started college at NYU and moved near him as he was in his second year at PARSONS. He just wasn’t in the mood, nor particularly had the herculean patience required to put up with the sickliness of her and Alana’s relationship. He found it cute, especially since it was nice to see Zoe so open despite their father’s dismissal of her identity and relationship.

 

It just reminded him of how there was no one there for him like that. Even though he had a decent following online, nobody here actually wanted to be in a relationship, outside of the 13-year old straight girls who followed him. He understood it, truly he did. He didn’t have the same reputation that followed him during school, no longer seen as the friendless angry emo. But he still stood out slightly in the wrong way, his dark grunge-esque clothing standing out from all the thrifted and designer bright and cool patterned pairings his peers wore. He was too gangly and broody to appeal to the indie/art-y boys in his class, and the guys he occasionally hooked up with from grindr weren’t intending on staying past the night, probably already sensing the anger issues and the borderline personality diagnosis he had to carry around with him.

In short, going out with Alana and Zoe reminded him of how painfully lonely he will always be, and he could do without that, if he was being perfectly honest.

“C’mon, just this once! I promise we won’t be all ‘gross and shit’ in your face! Plus Alana genuinely likes you, and she liked that rant video you posted last week about the duality of mental health awareness or stigmatisation or whatever it was.” Pleading eyes continued looking at him, getting doe-y and extra convinving.

 

God, his sister was so conniving.

 

“Alright, fine. But I’m only going cause that boosted my ego slightly and will make up for the pining I will inevitably feel watching you two sickly sweet kids.” He ruffled her hair slightly as he began to push her towards the door, all thoughts of the virtual commenter disappearing from his mind.

 

“Um, about that. We kinda have to go now, cause it takes a while to get to Hell’s Kitchen for the reservation from here.” Sheepishly, she looked at him with a tentative if not cheeky smile.

 

Ugh.

 

“Let me stick some proper jeans on. But if this place is fancy, we are so screwed. I can’t afford food Z.”

 

Pulling the comfortable, loose jogging bottoms he had been moping in his bed in off, uncaring as to whether his sister saw his pale, skinny legs or not. Past events meant that she had seen more of him than anyone else, so he had moved on from feeling shy in front of her. He still saw he averting her eyes and checking her phone, if not to give him the courtesy of feeling slightly private. Grabbing the closest black pair of clean looking jeans, he pulled them off of the dusty floor and up his legs, the looser, dickies-style hanging off of him without a belt, which he was sure to fasten when Zoe passed him one.

 

What he was wearing on his top half (a vintage, grunge shirt and a black cardigan) would have to do, because he sure as hell wasn’t getting changed anymore. As he pulled on a pair of vans, avoiding his usual clunky doc marten affair, he felt Zoe tugging him out of the door, barely allowing him to grab his phones and keys before the door slammed shut.

 

Checking his phone screen, scrolling past the twitter and tumblr notifications, he didn’t see a reply to his reply to Evan’s comment.

Maybe he didn’t see it. Maybe he was busy.

 

Before Connor could ponder anymore, a tug on his arm pulled him forward and out of his thoughts.

 

He'd have to return to that later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos help me understand advanced calculus


	3. waiting, always waiting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evan replies to THE reply. Oh, and he ponders his entire life existence, as one does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, i only really write on my commute now im on my way to and from college aka why its late.
> 
> also i can feel it being a really slow burn. sorry it will pick up pace soon, i think im just exploring my characterisation

A gentle twinkling filled his room as one of the iPhone alarms went off on his phone. Evan pushed up to look outside of the window, expecting to see a dimly lit New York street and the off-license opposite.

 

Instead, all he could see was light.

 

_Shit._

 

The sun was clearly up, illuminating the street below filled with pedestrians; office workers and tourists all walking down, under perpetual scaffolding and over dingy air vents.

 

Or: he was late.

 

His lecture wasn’t until 9:30, which seemed alright considering it was only 8. Except he had to get dressed, find his bag and laptop, chuck his phone in as well, brush his teeth, find his metro card and take two trains to get to the lecture hall.

 

QED: he was fucked.

 

Shooting up like a terrified kangaroo, he rushed into pulling on the first pair of trousers and whatever jumper he could find, cutting down on the time it took to get dressed. Yes, technically he was still wearing the underwear from yesterday but college students had to make sacrifices. Stumbling around the room and out into the hall as he straightened the green jumper over the slightly ill-fitting jeans, he exploded into the bathroom and over the counter, rather forcefully yanking the toothbrush over his teeth.

 

Being late might not matter to other people, he knew some people just didn’t give an inch of bother as he saw them waltzing into class 30 minutes late, unbothered by the professor at the moments solid death wither. To Evan, late had a series of terrible consequences. Firstly, his anxiety would be proved right, therefore making every subsequent time he felt anxious about something a little more real and less manageable. Secondly, he would have to walk into the lecture hall or classroom. He couldn’t sneak in like he used to in first year, through the back of the labs or a conjoining door at the back of the room. Instead, whatever devil he had wronged had decided to put every room he had a class in with an entrance next to the professor’s desk, literally making it impossible to sneak in, lest he look like he has a bad back syndrome or can’t walk properly. This leads onto issue three: the professor would then see him walking in and make a comment. He knows the types: ‘Ah, glad to see you today Evan. Nice to know you turned up for once’ or ‘Actually attending my class? Your grade certainly doesn’t reflect that.’.

 

Any kind of comment like that, Evan knows he would start crying. Not silent tears either, but the big, snotty, phlegm-being-summoned-from-every-crevice kind of tears. He’d probably make a really ugly face as well, akin to an unfortunately facially gifted baby.

 

And then, issue four: the whole lecture hall full of students would see this, and then know what a loser Evan was. I mean, _who_ cries over being late to a lecture? No one but a freak. And then Evan would have to walk past them all to get to his seat, and then they would all judge him and hate him for the rest of the year and he would never make friends and then he’d be friendless save for Jared for the rest of his life cause they’d tell everyone they knew and he’d become known as the crying kid.

 

Finally, the fifth issue to him being late: after he has to go through that enormous debacle, there would be no way he would ever be able to pay attention to the lecture, making it completely defunct him even turning up in the first place.

 

Staring back at himself in the mirror, he supposed the decision was made. He just wouldn’t go.

 

Except he really needed the credits from this elective class and his grade was already slipping to a B. He couldn’t let it bring down his average and then lead to his mom seeing it and being disappoint and gah! He just wished his brain would _SHUTUP_.

 

Yanking himself out of that thought track and nodding to himself firmly, his reflection nodding back, he headed down the hall, making a quick detour to grab the nearest backpack (definitely Jared’s but oh well) and his laptop, as well as grabbing his phone of the charging cable and shoving it in.

 

He had his wallet, metrocard, school id and his computer. He was set.

 

Walking (more verging on the edge of running) down the street, dodging random tourists as the rush hour of workers had trailed off, he slammed down the subway stairs, scanning the metrocard with more force than anyone ever before and quite literally tripping down the stairs to make it to the train before it took off.

 

He barely squeezed past the doors before they shut, panting slightly and taking the nearest seat.

 

It was only then that he had time to check his phone, dim screen lighting up under the flickering flourescent lights as he jammed his earphones in the jack and put them on.

 

As the sweet sounds of Ruelle (Evan preferred softer music that calmed his heartbeat and mind) filled his ears above the hubbub of an almost filled subway train, he scrolled down the notification reel at the top. They were all pretty standard.

 

**2 FACEBOOK MESSAGES!**

**THREE PEOPLE LIKED YOUR TWEET!**

**YOU HAVE 8 NEW TWITTER NOTIFICATIONS!**

**_insanelycoolkleinman_ SENT A POST BY WARMZN TO MEME BROS!**

**con. TWEETED:**

_**i’m being dragged to a dinner with my sister and her girlfriend pra...** _

**15 UNREAD NEW EMAILS**

**6 YOUTUBE NOTIFICATIONS**

**_itsConnor_ REPLIED TO YOUR COMMENT**

 

Wait? What.

 

Holy cow. Connor, the Connor, _his_ Connor, replied to his comment.

 

He tried to keep himself from hyperventilating on public transport, fingers fumbling as he tried to connect to the MTA free wifi so he could click it.

 

What had Connor said? Did he call him a freak for seeing how much he commented? Did he tell him to go away? Did he profess his undying and hidden love for Evan?

 

Even Evan knew the last one was physically impossible, so with one last trembling breath he clicked on the notification, praying to every deity that the shitty wifi would hold enough for him to see it.

 

YouTube loaded slowly, the white background plain until Connor’s video popped up, his voice escaping through his earphones and reverberating through his head. Eagerly scrolling down, he found his comment as the first box, highlighted as a notification.

 

And what had Connor said?

 

“Thx”

 

Was that good or bad? Evan assumed it was better than nothing, at least it wasn’t something along the lines of “freak” (he would like to say that Connor isn’t the kind of person to do that, but he’s seen some of the screenshots of how he has replied to rude commenters a few years back).

 

But ‘thx’ was quite blunt. It wasn’t even a full ‘thanks’... did that mean Connor didn’t care about him? Then again he didn’t know him, so of course he wouldn’t care about him like that.

 

Now he was racking his brain for some kind of reply. He had to reply, surely? Binge watching Connor’s videos and commenting on every single one for the past two months had led to this moment. He couldn’t waste his budding internet crush by not replying.

 

He went for the first thing he could think of: “you’re welcome! keep it up i love your videos <3” and pressed sent before he could overthink it.

 

Except now he couldn’t help even though it had sent. Why did he add a heart? If that doesn’t scream overwhelming gay crush then what does?

 

It was too late for him to think anymore as the train announcer’s voice filtered through his earphones, announcing his stop, and hence starting the rush and panic in him to make sure that he got off and onto the next train in plenty of time. Luckily he had checked the current time and by all miracles it was only 9:15. He probably wasn’t going yo be late, unless there was a natural disaster of some sort. Bless up.

 

The next train journey was a blur, only really coming to full consciousness as his feet stepped onto concrete pavement outside the red bricked lecture hall, head filled with thoughts of a long-haired 20 year old, blue-brown eyes the focus of his pondering.

 

And wasn’t it stupid that he was so gone for a boy he had never met? Evan was the type of person who fell hard and fast for someone he had never talked to, memorised all their idiosyncrasies and minuscule details. It happened in high school with a girl called Brooke, a popular girl he fell so hard for that he once stuttered and called her Crook, leading to him then having a fit trying to correct himself and her thinking he had broken. Then it happened in Freshers Week, when, at an orientation for one of his classes, this one kid called Alex picked up the pen he dropped. He spent the whole class admiring his tanned skin and freckled cheeks, barely scraping a pass. Once the class had ended he never saw the guy again, leading to yet another almost-heartbreak.

 

As he travelled into the room, flashing his pass at the door to get in, he wondered what attracted him to Connor?

 

Objectively, Connor was extremely good looking, slender and with just the edge of something other than stereotypical beauty, Evan had no doubt that he could be signed as a model. But there was something else about him, about his personality that attracted him. Maybe Evan’s type for men was tall brunettes, maybe he liked people who were kind. Then again, Evan remembered his old, completely faded crush on Jared, someone who was definitely not tall, blonde or slim. Although the crush had eradicated itself, it helped him realise who he was.

 

Connor just acted a certain way in his videos, showed a side of himself that Evan saw in himself, even if hidden. And he knew Connor wasn’t the Mother Theresa of all men, he had told stories of his anger, taking it out verbally on his sister, punching school bullies, getting in fights with people in his hometown. But he had- is- trying to be a better person, resolve his wrongs. Evan could relate to that.

 

Before he even knew, the lecture had started and he glanced around to see everyone else steadily writing whatever the professor had started talking about. Scrambling around in his bag to pull out his laptop and a word document, he followed suit; everything the lecturer had previously said could be sneakily copied from his classmates. He was fine.

 

Except, now his brain was being dominated by a guy he had never met, if catalysed by his single syllable reply to him.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos give me an understanding of a level law


	4. think to be thoughtful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor goes to college, he also makes a video.... and he becomes more aware of Evan’s existence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is late because... i am stressed with college. being a maths “major” is hard, and the fact that i barely do any typing anymore means im slow with a keyboard!
> 
> in other news, i was very emo over mike leaving. fyi, i have based these characters off of mike as connor, will as jared and ben OR taylor as evan!! (if anyone has boots, pls send)
> 
> oh and hey, thanks.

The buzzing of his phone woke him up, his 10am alarm blaring next to his face as he groggily sat up. Fuck this shit.

 

He almost certainly didn’t want to get ready to go to class, a graphics elective where he fucked around on Photoshop and made some boring clean lined piece he had no interest in. Then again, the interesting part of his bachelor’s meant he had to go, and that part made it worth it.

 

Luckily his class wasn’t till 2pm so he had chance to either go to some independent coffee shop or starbucks to get the assignment he hadn’t finished (and totally could’ve, but put off) due in for the class.

 

He got up to the usual fanfare of a cold floor and pre-worn clothes, this time wearing his comfy grey hoodie over an old graphic tee (oh, the irony) and blue straight jeans. Deviating from his norm of dark, simply due to the fact that his jeans were definitely too dirty to pass of as clean, he felt kinda strange, but it was a whatever.

 

Clicking the lock to his single behind him as he tugged on his satchel, Connor took the slow route to a coffee shop a block away from where his class was, a small place called Miah’s, the kind of place that wasn’t “indie” enough to be full of hipsters and band kids but wasn’t aesthetic enough to be full of instagrammers. It was exactly the kind of place people who wanted to work went, the grey interior and genuinely good, no-frills coffee always spurring a motivation Connor rarely saw himself express.

 

As he meandered towards the place, he took a chance to just breathe and appreciate New York. It was less busy now, the middle of the work day in autumn season meaning that there were few tourists visiting and few workers out, leaving him free to appreciate where he lived. His halls were bordering into Greenwich Village, just slightly out from where his class building was more towards Union Square. He was glad he lived where he could still see green, shuddering at the idea of living near the financial district. The green here reminded him of his hometown, the orchard where he used to go to escape, the park where he once lay, surrounded by foliage and the quiet.

 

Although he may not seem like it, Connor was the kind of person who found himself grounded in nature. It didn’t rid him of his anger, didn’t cure his borderline. But it helped him feel less trapped, allowed the emotions he felt to roam free.

 

The calming walk to the coffee shop reminded him of why he was here. To live his dream, to make himself and his sister proud.

 

None of that mattered in this precise moment, as he had to choose whether or not he wanted a white americano or a peppermint latte. Choices, choices, choices.

 

He settled on a peppermint latte, swapping out the muffin he was going to get with a bag of crisps instead, balancing the sweet drink with savoury paprika crinkled-cut crisps. The guy at the till, a tall, skinny guy with wavy brown hair and slightly distant eyes rang up his order, promising to bring it over to him when the peppermint latte was finished. The girl behind him, a shorter, asian girl with a mega-watt smile that could probably brighten anyone’s day, waved at Connor as he sat down, obvious that she must be making his latte.

 

Pulling out his laptop, he opened Photoshop and Illustrator to sort out some of the typography and colour issues in the assignment that he had to correct. For this assignment he had to take a piece from his fine art class and create a piece from the same palette and theme on photoshop. Ultimately he settled on an old freshman project related to a monochromatic blue palette and industrial buildings, figuring that the angles of industrial buildings would be easier to create an “inspired” piece from it. Graphics never were his strong suit.

 

A frosty, mint-green tinted mug was placed next to his bag of crisps, the still-joyous face of the other barista smiling back at him as she wished him a good work session, the sound muffled through the earphones playing soundcloud-esque rap. He quirked the corner of his mouth to do a semi-smile back, continuing with the work if only to dip into his coffee and crisps now and then.

 

Time passed quickly, the ticking of the clock onto 1pm waking him from the work reverie he had worked himself into, the project basically finished for the class. Thank god.

 

Connor decided to take a break, checking his phone for the first time properly. All the standard youtube and twitter notifications were there, and as he scrolled through both he suddenly remembered his comment to tree guy. Maybe he had replied?

 

Refreshing the video and scrolling down to the comments, he saw immediately Evan’s reply to his reply: “you’re welcome! keep it up i love your videos <3”.

 

Well, Evan was strangely polite. Who the fuck says “keep it up” or even “you’re welcome” over the internet nowadays? Most people are blunt and only intend on getting the reaction that suits their own personal needs. Huh.

 

Either way, Connor found his reply cute. He could tell that the other guy genuinely paid attention in his videos, especially thanks to the cute heart he had added onto the end. He liked the comment and clicked on Evan’s hyperlink, going straight to his channel.

 

There was a list of videos, all sorted into neat playlists and the like. Apparently, according to Youtube’s algorithm, Evan’s most popular video was on Stuxnet and the Natanz nuclear plant. This was followed by a few more of his detective-y videos; it was obvious that they did better than videos detailing a fraxinus excelsior, whatever that was. Connor supposes the niche horticulture videos didn’t do too bad, still gaining maybe 10,000 views and the like.

 

He clicked on his about, trying to see if his social medias were linked in there, and sure enough there was his twitter, instagram and tumblr. Connor still had time to kill so he snooped on Evan’s twitter, trying to see what kind of stuff he retweeted.

 

The guy’s twitter opened up, the little “follows you” sign popping up next to his display name, which was simply Evan, his header a mountainous shot, probably taken by a professional unless he was secretly a talented photographer. His profile picture was a picture of him taken by someone else, in what looked like a greenhouse, his sandy hair contrating against the green background. Evan looked good, blue polo shirt highlighting the blue in his eyes and his illuminating smile literally beaming through the photograph.

 

Connor scrolled down, looking at the kind of things Evan had retweeted. And well... some of them were his tweet. In fact, it seemed like Evan had replied to some of his tweets; just kind, supportive but still humorous comments. He seemed to just be an all round nice guy.

 

This was exemplified through his retweets: stuff to do with bisexual erasure, tweets in support with trans people, some woke retweets in regards to police brutality and racism, even stuff for mental health support. Alana would like him. He didn’t have a lot of followers but his own tweets about these topics had a fair few likes. Of course, his profile contained a large volume of tweets about plants and trees but Connor literally knew nothing about them so he ignored them.

 

Genuinely, he wanted to know more about Evan. He didn’t seem to be some crazy fanboy, he was clearly intelligent and not some conservative that Connor would get in arguments with constantly. The shyness in his videos and social media presence, whilst slightly awkward, was endearing at worst, and if that was his worst trait then Connor had a lot of catching up to do. He clicked the follow button next to the other guy’s icon, then closed the app on his phone. He had a few more things to wrap up on his laptop before he headed to class, like finishing a quick annotation section for his piece.

 

After that was finished and he had gone to class, barely holding on attention-wise through the whole lesson. All this content felt easy or boring to him, so what normally piqued his interest in art was gone.

 

That was the main reason Connor had behavioural issues in school (disregarding his lack of anger management). He would be forced to sit in classes he either had no interest in attending or classes that he already knew all the content of. This led to heated disputes with teachers over his “conduct” and the fact that his behaviour was off constantly, he either distracted himself or his peers with his outbursts. Even though he graduated with a 4.0 GPA he knew had he actually been engaged in the lessons he would’ve done so much better and ‘lived up to his potential’ as his father would say.

 

Graphics was an alright class, however, even if it dragged. He picked it as part of his electives for this term, so he clearly liked it better than the other electives (things like sustainability in art and political economies). As he dragged his way back to his dorm, ready for this hell of a half-semester to be over, and for Christmas to come and go. College was fun, all things considered, but it was stressful enough without his mental health being brought into it.

 

That’s why he found himself laying on his bed, a cold ice pack over his eyes in his shrouded room as he tried to numb the migraine thumping in his head and ingrained into his retinas, the light only exemplifying it. He had planned on filming a video discussing “tumblr” or “aesthetic” art (something he had done a presentation on for his history of contemporary and modern art class), but right now that option did not appear to be viable at all. He had taken some paracetamol and ibuprofen so he expected it to diminish enough to make the video. He also took some propranolol to calm his anxiety over the video and the day in general, the built up nerves only serving to exemplify his headache.

 

As he laid there on his duvet, head cushioned softly by the crumpled pillows, Brahms playing minutely in the background, his mind wandered to the man with the sandy hair.

 

Objectively, he knew he was someone he had stared at a little on twitter, watched a few videos of and recieved comments from for the past two months. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he wanted to know more, the thought was reoccurring at the forefront of his mind.As the harsh, incessant buzzing settled down in his ears, he thought of Evan, his smile, his calm demeanour and his startlingly beautiful eyes.

 

Mind calm and head now numb from the working medication, he lethargically sat up, pulling the blinds up to let in natural light so he could finally film it. All he had to do was crack this video out and he could go to sleep early and worry about assignments the next day, when his brain wasn’t trying to kill him.

 

He set up his rather unfortunately expensive camera up on its tripod, manually adjusting the light levels to make sure everything looked bright enough without washing him out like a sad, pasty ghost.

 

Pressing record and clapping once to sync the audio, he smiled tiredly, if not genuinely, and greeted the camera: “Hey. If I seem tired, that is because I am. Anyway, in today’s video I wanted to discuss the “tumblr” (air quotes were used) art style that has created controversy in the traditional and professional art communities who all share a similar, uh, narrative on.....” He continued his discussion, meanwhilst still keeping a thought on the guy he had only just followed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos give me jazz guitar skills


	5. you can call me up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evan freaks out. That's mainly Connor's fault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey again sorry for being late. im really getting swamped with college week cause its internal mocks soon and I'm going to u of e for a summer school thing. also my friends are going thru some shit so I'm tryna help them with that. 
> 
> oh and hey, thanks.

The time was 6pm, and Evan was officially freaking out. It wasn’t like an anxiety freak out, more of a like adrenaline-and-joy freak out.   
  
Connor had followed him. On twitter.   
  
This was literally the moment of his dreams (okay no, that involved being a botanist and having his own orchard but...). Connor rarely followed anyone on twitter, or at least not from Evan’s perspective. His last tweet, something about his sister and him going out for dinner, was sitting right under the little <follows you> sign. It had already been liked by Evan, no reply posted as he couldn’t think anything funny or witty to reply with last night.   
  
Now what did he do?   
  
He and Jared were set to go out to get food at some “classic american” diner; did he tell Jared or does he keep it to himself?   
  
That’s how he found himself in the diner, fidgeting awkwardly whilst Jared stared back at him unimpressively. Well, crap. Jared could definitely tell something was up. 

 

“You do realise you’re not subtle. Like, at fucking all. You look like you’re trying to hide muscle spasms,” Jared stared right back at him, one eyebrow raised above his glasses rim in a definite disapproval. “I’ve known you for more years than I’d care to recount, did you really think I wouldn’t notice something was up?”

 

Evan spluttered a little bit before slumping forward. He guessed the rather shoddy act was up. 

 

“Okay, fine. I’m not like anxious about anything, it’s just that Connorfollowedmeontwitter and Idon’tknowwhattodo.” He rushed out, the words falling over each other like clumsy daddy long-legs. Burying his head in his hands, he looked up to see Jared looking bemusedly back over the wooden booth table.

 

“First of all, breathe between your words. I thought Dr Sherman was teaching you how to enunciate properly. And secondly, go on dude. Hit up your man, see if he wants a slice of Evan pie.” Jared finished my wiggling his eyebrows, smile stretched wide, trademarkedly goofy.

 

That was no help.

 

How was he supposed to ‘hit his man up’. Connor wasn’t even his man. How did you hit someone up? Could he send him a chat up line about trees? Ah fuck. That would definitely not be sexy at all. Maybe he could mention one of his videos? No, that would come across to fanboy-y, even if Evan technically was a fanboy.

 

“C’mon dude. Things are looking up. Get your queer on, or whatever it is the kids say.” Jared was smiling back at him, as Evan looked up through his slanted eyes.

 

Slowly ascending back to a normal seated position, Evan sighed.

 

“You’re not meant to say those kinds of things, Jared. Queer can be seen as a slur.” Mumbling, he still looked down, eyes averted as he wondered where the hell the food they ordered was. It was hardly like he was going to ask one of the waitresses though, they all looked stressed and he didn’t really want to bother them any further.

 

“Oh shit, I forgot. Sorry.” Cringing, Jared looked back at Evan. Sometimes Jared forgot the connotations certain words had, if only because of his past as an edgy reddit teenager. It was kinda shitty but at least he was genuinely trying, Evan supposed. “Still, just message the guy. Surely him following you was a sign, especially since he replied to your comment. And look at his follower ratio, he doesn’t follow just anyone. Give it a shot man.”

 

Still unsatisfied with Jared’s response, he shrugged silently and stared back at Jared, the silence comfortable if only because of its common occurrence.

 

“Evan, don’t let your anxiety or inner monologue or whatever ruin this for you. Just message him, even if it’s just a thanks for following. You’ve literally been doing a mental wank at this guy for months. Don’t lose your chance. Stepping out of your comfort zone led to you studying on a full ride at Columbia, imagine what this could lead to.” Jared looked at him, the serious tone of his words hitting Evan like a ton of bricks, even erasing the slight cringe at his choice of words.

 

“But how do I know that. What if I message him, and then he thinks I’m a freak and then he makes a video about it and I go viral and everyone knows me as the pathetic tree kid who thought he had a shot at Connor Murphy.” Sighing, he looked down again. Where the fuck was their food. Now this was definitely bordering on too long.

 

Back to staring at him bemusedly, Jared opened his mouth: “Think rationally. Imagine this would be me. The worst thing that could happen is I’d be ignored or unfollowed and then I’d move on over the crush. Does Connor seem like the kind of person to ruin your life over saying hi? Cause if he was that kind of person, I doubt you would be watching his videos, and I doubt he would’ve followed you.”

 

Right as Jared finished, the pretty blond waitress who had originally served them came with their food, setting fries and a burger in front of both of them. “Sorry for your wait.” She smiled kindly at them both, placing their drinks on the table before walking back to the counter. Normally Evan would’ve been a bumbling mess at the sight of her, his weakness for pretty girls completely exploited. But thanks to the current infatuation with Connor, his inability to form coherent words was at a minimum, a thanks able to be issued before she left. Wow. He really did like Connor. What an Evan thing to do, be gone for someone he had never met or properly conversed with.

 

Shoving a fry in his mouth, Jared continued. “Tell ya what. You message him, thanking him for following you and saying hi, and if he blanks you, YOU get to choose where we get to eat next time.”

 

And that, that was an interesting prospect. There was a garden, jungle-y cafe Evan had seen on instagram which he wanted to try but was way too shy to do so by himself. This was the perfect opportunity to force Jared to go with him, and ultimately, he wanted to message Connor anyway. At least if he failed this time (like he inevitably would), he would get a consolation prize. 

 

“Fine,” He said over the bite of burger in his mouth, the fluorescent lighting from the blue diner probably making him look as goofy as he felt. “I’ll message him. But if it backfires, you’re completely responsible. When I have the breakdown, you can deal with it.” He smirked in faux-confidence, still nervous over the prospect of messaging Connor, especially now it had become real. 

 

“Jesus Christ, Evan, no need to be so morbid. Now eat your food and tell me about your shitty environmental statistics professor.”

 

They were walking back to their apartment when Jared brought the topic back up, looking over to him under the ever present scaffolding surrounding New York’s buildings. “So, have you messaged him?”

 

Evan spluttered once more, shocked by the sudden turn of events. The dark night covered his now red face, but he still looked down to avoid eye-contact.

 

“You’ve been with me this entire night. You know I haven’t messaged him.” Evan sighed, exasperated slightly.

 

“Weellll, open twitter now. I’ll scribe the message if you really want,” He winked, looking up slightly to Evan with his ever-so-slightly creepy grin.

 

“Um, I’m good thanks. I can do it myself.” He looked worriedly at Jared, not 100% sure how far he would go in messaging Connor. For all he knew, Jared would confess Evan’s secretive love and pawn off a marriage proposal. Pulling his phone out, he made a point to open the twitter apps and DMs in front of Jared, if only to save him from stealing his phone in the night and messaging Connor.

 

His DMs were pretty bland, a few groupchats with people he had met through twitter and youtube, his messages with Jared, a few messages with the few subscribers he had, and now an opened, blank dm with Connor.

 

**_To: con._ **

 

_ Hey! I’m Evan, I’ve seen some of your videos on YouTube. I just wanted to say hi and thanks for the follow. Evan x. _

 

“What’s with the kiss?” Jared laughed, a little bit in disbelief. “You never send me kisses.”

 

“I’ve never wanted to suck your dick.” He snaps back, pressing send before he could regret what he wrote.

 

“Jesus Christ,” Jared looked a little bit shocked and surprised, “Wait, I thought you had a crush on me in like the 9th Grade?”

 

Evan stared back, slightly wide eyed.

 

“How did you know that? Also, I never wanted to suck your dick I was like, 13.”

 

“You weren’t subtle. You kept blushing every time I looked at you and it seemed like you were going through a next-level mental breakdown.” Jared looked back at him, shrugging nonchalantly. How Jared managed to keep his apparent cool, even though Evan knew he wasn’t that chill, was beyond him. Evan really did envy that. “Anyway, I know you don’t still have that crush. I’m pretty sure that died when I bragged about making out with that israeli girl at camp.”

 

They slowed down as they reached their apartment building, pushing through the door and into the lift up to the third floor. 

 

“I stopped having crush cause I realised you were a huge nerd who never kissed a girl, let alone made out with one.” He retorted, the sudden sour of confidence letting him smirk back at Jared.

 

“Me, a loser? Says the one who broke his arm falling out of a tree last year.” Jared rebutted, not backing down as the lift continued to fly up.

 

Evan went silent as he looked back at Jared, reminded of exactly what had happened last year. Jared didn’t know the whole story, so Evan couldn’t blame him for bringing it up. The only people who knew what had happened were Dr Sherman and his Mom, both finding out after he finally broke down when the web of lies he had spun about being found by a friend collapsed and led to him being in the exact same mindset. He didn’t even like saying the word outloud or acknowledging that he got to that low of a point in his life, even though he knew rationally there was no shame in talking about it. There was this internalised stigma over the whole ordeal. Evan knew it was common to do that kind of thing, experiencing it even with his bisexuality and the internalised biphobia he felt. Rationally he knew there was no shame in any of it, and that he should be proud of his identity. But that little part of his brain didn’t click with the anxiety inducing subsection of his brain.

 

“Dude, you went really quiet over there. Are you alright? Honestly the whole Connor thing will be fine.” Worridley, Jared looked back to Evan, eyes widened as he took in his state, silent and slightly shell shocked.

 

Sometimes Evan forgot how nice Jared was. Sometimes he acted like a shitposter who didn’t give a fuck, especially when he acted like the bully he used to be. But he knew Jared cared about him, especially with the way he acting concerned now. This is why he could never tell him about last year, when everything like keeping his scholarship overwhelmed him. It would really hurt Jared, to know Evan didn’t think he could go to him.

 

“No, no. I’m fine. I just got stuck in my mind for a second.” He replied, dodging Jared’s eyes slightly as he opened the door to his apartment.

 

“Hey, it’s cool Hansen. We can watch this british series I found on netflix with that guy from Dexter in it. It’s only like eight episodes, and I can help you with your Poisson in Nature homework for that bitch if you want.” Jared called back, already situated on the couch mere seconds after they had entered the apartment.

 

Evan really was glad to have Jared.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos help me understand poisson distribution


	6. he tells me that im dreaming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They finally dm. Yes, that’s right. They have their first one on one conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ive kinda lost motivation lol.
> 
> in other news, life is shit & im bricking it for my further math finals. dont be a math major kiddos. 
> 
> and hey, thanks.

It was literally 11:06 and Evan (tree guy, his mind helpfully supplied) had messaged him.

 

**_From: Evan_ **

 

_ Hey! I’m Evan, I’ve seen some of your videos on YouTube. I just wanted to say hi and thanks for the follow. Evan x. _

 

And well. “Seen some” was a bit of an understatement. Connor knew fully well that Evan had watched close to if not, every, video he had ever put out. It was clear Evan was trying to downplay his “fanboy”y nature, and where that would normally aggravate Connor in its dishonesty, he appreciated it from Evan. He presumably didn’t want to overpower Connor or appear to be a stalker. Connor liked that. 

 

Also, his use of “x” was confusing. Did Evan just type like that? He knew some people used kisses ironically and unironically for everything so maybe Evan was that type of person. Or maybe he used it specifically just for Connor? A kiss normally had connotations of romantic feelings but… Evan didn’t appear to have a crush on him, the majority of his comments were pretty tame and friend-like. Plus, as Connor had already mentioned, no one really crushed on Connor in real life, so it seemed impractical that Evan would, especially since Evan was good looking and not a shitty person. Evan seemed like the kind of person that would downplay his success on youtube, but Connor knew to have 30,000 subscribers and a slightly popular video series was a serious accomplishment. Even though he was past that, he had been at that point around his first year at PARSONs and it was the moment he felt the most prideful over his channel when he started to see some growth.

 

Still, he hadn’t answered Evan’s DM. He guessed he could be really casual about it, just pop up and say hey. An intrusive part of his brain wanted him to either flirt with or confront Evan. The defensive, scared part of his brain wanted him to not reply, but Connor wasn’t exactly a silent person; it wasn’t in his nature to not make a noise.

 

**_From: con._ **

 

_ hey. ive seen ur comments on some of my videos. i watched ur vid on the 300mil yen robbery & it was rlly interesting. how r u? _

 

Connor went for his first instinct, which was just to say hey at first, but continued on to say that he’d watched his video. He didn’t want the guy to think he considered himself above everyone else, cause that was an asshole-y thing to do, and Connor hated assholes.

 

(Even if he could, and had, been one sometimes.)

 

Saying ‘how r u?’ was a bit of a risky question. He did genuinely want to know what Evan’s response would be, but he felt like Evan would be the kind of person who would reply with the generic “I’m good, thanks.” 

 

Whilst Connor was pondering all of this, tucked up underneath his duvet, illuminated only by his phone screen and a tiny lamp in the corner of his dorm room, the typing sign popped up in the DM box.

 

Well, this was a bit nerve-wracking.

 

He continued staring at the little grey dots, waiting for whatever it was that Evan was typing to pop up. And man, either Evan was a slow typer, he kept erasing what he was typing or he simply was writing a whole essay cause it took at least 5 minutes before his message popped up.

 

**_From: Evan_ **

 

_ Hi :). I’m doing alright thank you, my Environmental Statistics professor is killing me. How are you? Also, thank you!  I really enjoy white-collar true crime, especially robberies and forgeries, even though occasionally they end up being violent. The idea that someone can be so deceiving as to get away with a crime, without being violent or causing physical harm to someone else is so fascinating to me. Also, the whole forgery network is so intricate and well-built, especially here in New York; it reminds me of beehives in nature. Evan x _

 

Before Connor could even begin to comprehend Evan’s message, another message came through almost instantaneously.

 

**_From: Evan_ **

 

_ Sorry about rambling, I’m sorry, sometimes I get too excited sorry. Evan x _

 

Jesus Christ. He didn’t mind Evan rambling, even though he didn’t know much about the topic or the guy. Connor liked people talking to him about random shit, even though once he screamed at Zoe for bragging about jazz band when they were 17. He regrets that, and ever since he built his relationship back with his sister he learnt to enjoy other people's interests, and understand that people talking about what they have a passion for or are excelling in, even if he has no personal interest, so the fact that Evan apologised literally 3 times (t h r e e times!) was kind of pitiful, as horrible as that sounded.

 

Apparently, Evan did environmental statistics. So he was smart. Technically Connor got an A in Math and AP Statistics but it definitely didn’t come naturally or enjoyably for him. The fact that he picked Art (even though it was hard and taxing) rather than a Science subject said a lot about what he fully understood. Science subjects were so precise and detail-obsessive (and with really fucking weird, complex concepts), whereas art was more on the artist’s viewpoints and interpretation. It was freer, and it allowed him to make mistakes without feeling dumb or belittled. 

 

(Which is a recipe for disaster in Connor’s psyche.)

 

Quickly, Connor realised he had spent more time analysing Evan’s message and Connor’s own mental state (he guesses that one psychology elective paid off) than actually working on a reply to Evan.

 

**_From: con._ **

 

_ u must be smart if u can do env stats 210 (?) push thru + ignore ur prof. i have a killer migraine after a graphics class which says a lot abt graphics. also, idm hearing abt true crime. i think its cool that ur interested in that kinda thing, no need to apologise. _

 

It was only after Connor had sent that message that he had noticed that Evan had left a kiss at the end once more. That cemented it in his mind that it was just a thing that he did n all his messages, considering he even did it in his apology, which seemed especially rushed.

 

The read receipt hadn’t yet popped up so Connor forced himself out of bed to get ready to sleep, socked feet touching the cool floor as he padded towards his en suite in the dull, yellow lighting that barely allowed him to see where the piles of clothes, canvases and art history textbooks were. He normally had comic books and vinyls scattered around as well, but in an effort of posterity he had tidied them away and attempted to keep them un-broken. 

 

Clicking on the fluorescent light,  it practically blinded him and caused the pounding to return, smashing against his skull and causing the physical feeling of ringing behind his eyelids. His bathroom was small, especially for the amount of money he (technically Larry, but Connor tried to pay as much as possible to avoid feeling like he owed something to his unfeeling father) paid for it. Despite that, he appreciated the tiny square that contained a tiny shower and a toilet that he could reach the sink from. He wouldn’t be able to survive in a shared bathroom, even in PARSONs dorms were most of the people were pretty open and accepting. Not only did he have to take a mountain of medication, he also woke up at random times in the night to pee or vomit, since his bladder was about the size of a peanut and his liver wasn’t doing the best in life. Connor was also skinnier than a skeleton, partly due to fatigue and depression and partly due to his liver damage, which didn’t bother him as much as he used to but he knew it might freak some of his floormates out. 

 

He sat down on the toilet lid after peeing, pressing down on his eyelids as he took as second to just breathe, in an attempt to release the continuously building pressure in his skull. Talking to Evan, even in only a few DMs, had distracted him from his migraine, but being in the bright, brilliant white bathroom and standing up had brought it back tenfold. 

 

Gathering the energy to stand up and open the mirrored cabinet on the grimy, cream walls opposite, he leant against his sink whilst observing his medication. He had already taken his Propranolol, multivitamins and Adderall but he had another dose of Silymarin and his Doxepin to take to fall asleep. He was debating about taking a Zolmitripan to combat his migraine, and decided to even though he was trying to avoid simply to give his liver a break.

 

Taking the medication, he drank the full cup of water from the sink and left, flipping the switch for the light and closing the door. None of the tablets had kicked in yet, but he knew soon he would be out for the count.

 

Stumbling back to his bed, he climbed onto the high frame (curse dorms and the dumb beds) and literally collapsed under the sheets, flipping off the switch for the lamp which was still attempting to light the room, whilst struggling to fight the complete darkness from the night outside the blinds.

 

There was still no reply from Evan yet, but Connor wasn’t sure if that was just because he was taking an abnormally long amount of time or if he himself had fallen asleep too. It was rare for any kind of college students to fall asleep before 2am, the pressure of essays due and unsympathetic, hardened lecturers offering little leeway to sleep. Connor had to sleep somewhat early for at least half of the week, due to doctor’s orders. However Evan seemed to be the kind of person who slept really early and woke up early, if not from his overall vibe than from his love for nature and sunlight coming to the forefront of Connor’s mind.

 

Connor was starting to feel tired, the medication causing a haze in his brain, cloying like thick honey. As he relaxed more, body sinking more into the shitty target mattress topper and pillows, he thought briefly about his classes and the piles of homework he should have finished this afternoon but didn’t. Then his mind flew to the video Evan made on the robbery.

 

Although it isn’t something he’s found himself particularly interested in since he joined college, the way Evan talked about it and discussed his own theories on the whole thing, every pronunciation of the japanese names, whilst correct, cute and foreign sounding in his accent. The way he stumbled over words and occasionally rushed was endearing, if only Connor could tell him to breathe and take a break before continuing. For some reason Connor had developed a pseudo-crush in literally the space of a few days, although it wasn’t completely there yet. The interactions and tweets he had seen had only increased the development, as he was still an exceptionally well-typed (he supposed spoken too) man with views that didn’t seem to be shitty to Connor.

 

As his awareness decreased, mind only becoming fuzzier and fuzzier with every minute that passed, he started thinking less coherently,  thinking in mental images and half thoughts rather than the full trains of thoughts weaved together solidly and with slight complexity.

 

Colours passed over, each one changing in value and joining together to form a piece that could be used for his colour theory homework. That would have to explored when he woke up and could actually log the colours and thoughts. 

 

As he finally passed out, eyes falling closed and body fully relaxing, the colours formed in his head as a palette of blues, tawny browns and pale flesh tones, with varying values and tones, almost as though they were mimicking real life or an actual person.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos give me motivation :’)


	7. i've got no time to kill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evan has an essay to write, will it be written?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i keep forgetting what I've already written, sorry!
> 
> also this is slow because I'm enjoying my holiday and before this i had my finals, sorry.

Evan couldn’t breathe.

 

It was the next day, a merciful thursday, and of course he would stress sleep after sending Connor his messages.

 

A lot of it was just Jared telling him to “chill the fuck out” and “enjoy the show, Evan” which, admittedly, he did. He had tried to ignore his phone and the pang in his heart every time he thought about his response. It was dumb and he was dumb, but waiting for Connor’s reply was just going to double the dread in his stomach until it crashed over him in a wave of regret. Eventually he just zonked out, the stress sending him into a deep sleep in which brown, stoner-looking bunnies hopped around him calling him lame. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the worst dream he’s ever had.

 

He was harshly awoken from the surreal dream to Jared thundering around the apartment, yelling about his Further Java class and his “fucking Java concurrency in practise” textbook, all words Evan wasn’t sure he understood. Or wanted to be awoken by at 8 A bloody M. 

 

His first lecture wasn’t until 12PM, a blessed Soil and Water Systems module that he could probably pass with his eyes closed, considering the summer he spent getting well acquainted with tree soil and water systems (and wildflowers, Evan often overlooks the hours he spent looking after the various flora in the park). Normally he spends these days sleeping until 10 am, slowly getting up and then meandering over (this class was thankfully in a building close to their apartment) to the lecture hall or labs. Today was a mix of both, an initial lecture and then a lab based off of the lecture. Pretty sweet. After that, he was going to grab some food, even though the thought of eating in front of strangers terrified him almost enough for him to debate not eating, and then head to the tutorial he had. 

 

Jared’s little thunderstorm had all but messed up this sweet routine he had. 

 

Technically, he could stay in bed, but the sun was starting to get to the level of heat that made him feel uncomfortable, the prickly almost-sweat clawing at every inch of epidermis until even his loose shirt felt unbearably hot. Even though it was autumn, and his room didn’t reliably get that much sun to become sweltering, his intolerance to heat affected him even when it should just be slight. Pushing off of his mattress, bare feet slipping down onto cool laminate, he padded down to their bathroom, washing his face and sorting himself out, taking his medication and backing out to their living room. It was nice, a stylish, surprisingly sleek for two 20 year old male students who are probably stereotyped to not shower for days, sofa set in the center, wide television on the wall opposite and the typical new york window with a fire escape set on the wall adjacent. The room was nice, including the desk set up in the corner, as it was where Jared often filmed his videos, and despite him only being a commentary channel (not a fancy dancy lifestyle blogger), Jared took pride in having a decent background.

 

Evan mainly filmed his videos in his bedroom, preferring the plain, all-white brightness of his room to the taupe of the living room. 

 

Passing into the kitchen-y area, barely separate as even Jared’s substantial income (and Evan’s baby income) couldn’t afford a separate kitchen in New York, possibly the most expensive city in America, he poured himself a bowl of cereal. 

 

And yes, Evan ate granola. He fit possibly every “weird environmental enthusiast” stereotype he’d ever been made aware of, including always carrying trail mix and using bamboo toothbrushes, although he supposes the latter was rather more absurd than the former.  If he’s being honest, he supposes “weird environmental enthusiast” isn’t a common stereotype perpetuated in society. Still.

 

Moving back into the living room, he sank into the sofa, legs tucked up under him. He had 2-3 hours before he needed to even think about setting off, but he was tempted to leave early, set up shop in a coffee place or a cafe and power through his environmental law essay. His phone was still laying on his bedside table, forgotten in the mania of Jared and his outburst, so he ended up just being sat on the sofa looking at the plain wall opposite. He could put the television on, he ponders, but then he’d just get sucked into whatever was playing, and work needed to be done, preferably soon. 

 

Still pondering, exploring the ways he could develop his essay, he finished the bowl of granola, the honey-nut still stuck in his teeth in annoying sheaths.

 

This essay really needed to get done, and now that he had some ideas and a place to start, he supposed he may as well just kickstart his day and head out to start it.

 

Plus, he really wanted to check his phone. He hadn’t gotten Connor’s last message (if he had even sent one) and for the first time he didn’t have that nagging feeling that the person on the receiving end of his self-pedantic messages was starting to get impatient or inconvenienced with and by him.

 

Padding down to his room, feet barely making a whisper against the laminated floor, he slipped through the doorway and checked his phone before he could do anything else.

 

Opening the blue app, Connor’s reply glowed blue at the top of his messages. So he had replied.

 

**_From: con._ **

 

_ u must be smart if u can do env stats 210 (?) push thru + ignore ur prof. i have a killer migraine after a graphics class which says a lot abt graphics. also, idm hearing abt true crime. i think its cool that ur into that kinda thing, no need to apologise. _

 

Well. Connor certainly wasn’t a dickhead, despite what Evan’s inner fears might’ve suggesting (and Jared was right. God.). Now Evan needed to think of what he needed to reply with. He felt for Connor and his migraine, God knows environmental stats sent him burrowing under the covers on his duvet in his own little stress cocoon. Distance methods and the F distribution genuinely made his frontal lobe thrum with confusion. The thing with college is that subjects people thought they were good at in high school morphed into a completely harder, different subject. Evan didn’t mind AP statistics, came out with a 5, but any kind of environmental statistics turned all the previous knowledge he had on the binomial distribution on its head.

 

The fact that he didn’t mind hearing about Evan’s interest in true crime (especially the less-gory and slightly boring white collar stuff) assuaged the fear he had that Connor wouldn’t be interested in anything he was messaging him about, a fear that plagued him often when he messaged new people, even sometimes people he already knew from classes, rarely Jared, but sometimes he couldn’t make out the tone from messages and then that made him more anxious and then his perception of the message spiralled out of control and his self image ended all but egregious.

 

So he was genuinely relieved to see that the anxiety he had originally felt was ephemeral and wouldn’t last throughout their correspondence, because if so that would suck balls.

 

**_From: Evan_ **

 

_ It’s under MATH2740, which is stupid because I’m not even a math major, but I guess that’s how columbia likes to roll :) How is your headache now? Graphics seems kind of hard, but so does all sorts of artistic-y disciplines to me, art was never something that clicked for me, I didn’t even do AP Studio Art.  _

 

He hit send before he could regret it, and clicked off the app, starting already to get dressed. Sometimes the thing that made him feel the most motivated was when he actually got in the mindset of someone who was awake and prepared to write an entire essay on environmental law and why the original Wildlife and Countryside Act needed the amendments that occured in the law, and how he as a student would improve acts like this and which pressure groups he would pair with to get the bill passed. It was interesting and intricate but it sometimes dragged for him. Evan was a much more hands on person, preferring to see the actual mechanisms of the subject he was learning about, such as leaf and plant analysis and the like.

 

Pulling on a loose pair of jeans and sticking on a blue NYU sweater, courtesy of Jared from when he worked at one of the NYU gift shops before his youtube got big enough for him to completely subside on that revenue, bought on sale and with a staff discount. It was funny to walk into a Colombia lecture in an NYU sweater, the irony didn’t escape him, especially since he got rejected from NYU and ended up going to somewhere better for his specific course.

 

Grabbing his phone and his laptop, he stuck both into his backpack and grabbed an almond snack pack and his keys, nudging the door open with a single, air force covered shoe and letting it fall closed behind him as he made it out onto their hallway. He locked the door, double checking it before he set down the stairs and out the building into the crisp air. Even though it was sunny, and felt like a hot box inside of the apartment, the actual shadow of the towering buildings and the breeze quickly lowered the temperature outside on the streets. He decided he wasn’t going to go to a cafe, partly because he didn’t want to spend any money in an overpriced cafe, on a drink he didn’t really want just so he could write an essay. Instead he was going to the library connected to his lecture-and-lab building to attempt at least the outline and the first draft. 

 

The walk was fairly brief, but he felt the buzz of a twitter notification on his thigh from where his phone was. Hopefully, by all Gods’ of Gods’ above, that was Connor, because oh hell did Evan want to shoot his shot with that boy.

 

The library was before him, the cold concrete bricks of the old fashioned, 1800s architecture of the typical new york university buildings in front of him, the prestige-oozing steps making Evan feel that littlest bit less deserving of his place and scholarship. He flashed his ID at the sensor and got in, walking straight down the walnut floorings to the small, individual booths that he once made his home during last year’s finals when he studied every night (and God, was he glad it was a 24 hr library). Luckily this would allow him to get his head down and start writing his essay and also not stress about having to make hs lecture in time. He was really glad it was only 9AM.

 

He did want to check his phone before he got down to any work though. 

 

**_From: con._ **

 

_ yeah my headache is way better, i took my meds which really helped… ig that’s what theyre there for ahaha. and i took like 5 aps but two of them were studio art (3d & 2d), one of them was music theory and the other two were eng lit and eng lang, so what i was best at ig. what aps did u do? & colombia wow! u must be smart as hell _

 

Well. Connor was right about the medication thing, they did do what they were meant to do. The fact that he took studio art TWICE at AP level proved to Evan that he really was talented, because he honestly struggled with normal high school art.

 

**_From: Evan_ **

 

_ AP art twice?! You must be really good at art, but I suppose that’s obvious as you go to The New School! I took as many APs as I could throughout all my years in highschool, so in total I did like 11. I did Lang, Lit, APUSH, Stats, Calc BC, Bio, Chem, German, Phys 1, Env Science and Human Geog. I did some college classes to, which is the main reason I got the scholarship at Colombia. I don’t think I’m that smart, I just worked really hard in high school cause I only had like Jared. _

 

Well, he offloaded a little bit too much about the fact that he was a complete loner there. He could’ve lied and said he wasn’t one but it felt too disingenuous. And he was proud of the APs he took, he did sweat out in high school and he was really glad it paid off.

 

His phone buzzed as the reply from Connor came through.

**_From: con._ **

 

_ and let me guess, u got all 5s? knew u were smart as shit :) and i think im mediocre at art but my style is kinda cool so i think thats why ppl like it. I kinda wish id taken music instead but i love art equally as much. does that mean u can speak german? i can speak basic spanish which is handy for new york and thanks to my parents i can speak polish (my mom is polish) _

 

As he typed out his reply, the environmental law essay he was meant to do was left untouched.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos complete my summer law hw


End file.
